The island of Manhattan is a demilitarized zone between the United States of America and the seceding Free States of America in a world where the Second American Civil War has torn the country in half.
The comic book series of the same name was created by Westworld writer Roberto Patino and Sons of Anarchy writer Brian Wood. After searching for him throughout the USA, she returns to the DMZ to continue her search, only to find herself caught in a war between the rival groups trying to control Manhattan.
The four-episode series was directed by two filmmakers, one of which was an Oscar nominee. In order to turn Manhattan into the war-torn middle ground in a new American Civil War, the series looked to several visual effects studios, including the one led by Brian Kubovcik. Digital Trends spoke to the team that worked on the series about how they transformed some of Manhattan's most famous landmarks.
The series is almost four hours long. How many shots did your team work on?
The shot count was probably in the 400 range. Between 350 and 400 shots.
That is definitely a feature-length shot count, even though the series doesn't seem like a lot of work. What was the general vibe going into the series?
The biggest thing was world-building. This story needs to feel intimate, but we also need to build the scope of it, and have those big moments establishing where we are. It was obvious from the beginning that New York City was not the right place to shoot the show. Everything in New York is constantly changing and evolving, so it hampered the creative vision for it. Everything is new and shiny there. There are portions that feel a bit more worn, but in general, there is always new construction.
Is it because it ended up filming in Atlanta?
Right. When you go big and wide, you can tell the story with visual effects and expand the world. You can use visual effects to show what Manhattan might look like after the Second Civil War. When war-torn and MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE MzE
How did you decide where filming ends?
We asked what the story point was. I lived in New York for 13 years, so I was familiar with a lot of the actual blocks or corners they wanted to tell a story on. Roberto Patino had a clear idea of what this needed to be. He was a New Yorker and knew where he wanted to be at all times.
In the case of the Manhattan Bridge, we knew where the story wanted to take place. There is a separation between the USA and the DMZ. We went to Atlanta to do location scouting. A lot was done by the production designer and the director of photography to find those moments and find those corners that can mimic certain places in New York and to find out where we can do something practically to sell a specific corner and where we need to build in visual effects.
How did the visual effects work when you had specific architecture in mind?
We went to New York as a team and lidar-scanned the colonnade at the Manhattan Bridge. We had lower Manhattan assets that we would shift in space to help tell the story, and we built CG versions of very specific corners for the surrounding buildings. There is a reality of the city, but also a story reality and what feels grandiose in the frame. Taking liberties to move things around makes it feel like New York, even though the actual location might have more buildings, because it makes it feel big. People don't know what the Manhattan Bridge is, and wouldn't know about the colonnade. It was about balancing what looks like New York to those who aren't familiar with it, and what rings true to people who know the area.
What guidelines did you use to make those locations look like they had gone through a war?
Making it feel war-torn was about taking the existing structures, chewing away at them or knocking them down, and having overgrowth and nature taking back over. That is where we found the DMZ-ification of it all. We would be on set and there would be a white wall in Atlanta, and they would look to me. We used vegetation to represent the idea of warring organisms that are taking over nature. We are flawed and nature will win in the end.
There was an element that was difficult to work on.
Chinatown and Manhattan Bridge were the most challenging things for us. We spent a lot of time on those two things in a short period of time. Wilson Lin and his crew walled themselves off in Chinatown in our story. They have maintained their power grid, so it is a different look than the rest of the DMZ. Chinatown is one of the few places where we can see lights. The first floor in Atlanta was made to look like Chinatown, and we extended it up with visual effects for all those buildings, which was an interesting way to tell a story. When you see lower Manhattan in the background, it's blacked out and you can see some of the World Trade Center gone. It's subtle, but it sells the idea that this crew has maintained their lifestyle and are very close-knit while outside the walls, and things have fallen off into a post- apocalyptic world.
Is there any invisible visual effects? People would be surprised to know that shots are created with visual effects.
The amount that was practical in the final Manhattan Bridge moment was very small. A lot of it felt like it could be in camera, but the majority was us taking over the shot. I'm really proud of those shots because they took a lot of effort. It took a team of 40 to shoot the ending sequence of the show. Over the course of the four episodes, we had close to 80 different members of the team.
I want to know what it was like to work with DuVernay. She is an amazing filmmaker.
We had a close relationship with the production pilot and episodes two through four. Colin in Black and White and When They See Us were some of the projects we worked on with her. It was great to work with her again. She had a strong creative eye when she was on the show. She always thinks of the next thing she wants to see, and that's what you want. You would like those challenges. You want to tell stories.
Roberto Patino is a great human being and a wonderful person to work with. It was great to spend time with him on set. He is a really great partner.
There are four episodes of the show available.
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